Work History & Interesting
Projects
DPAS Network Control System (DNCS)
This is my personal favorite.
It was a Systems Engineering and Technical Assessment (SETA) project under
a government funded contract. This project started in December 1988
and proceeded through September/October 1990 and involved a team from HO
and MV. Our BL government contact Supervisor was John Waninski and
the team consisted of Systems Engineers from HO: Ahmet Arslan (1988-89),
Jim Bobeck (1988-90); and Software gurus from MV (1989-90): Dave McDonald,
Jeff Gerrish, and Dave Priebe.
Unfortunately, almost all of
my electronic versions of documents are no longer in my possession.
If you find this information interesting,
you may get paper copies from published documents in Linus/ITIS (what used
to be the Iternal Technical Document Service - ITDS). You may get
paper copies of these by requesting them via Linus/ITIS.
This project netted 2 patents for
Ahmet, Dave, Jeff, and myself.
Administration and Maintenance
Interface (AMI)
AMI is an Element Management
System for the control of Message Routers and Digital Video Home Terminals
(DVHTs) currently used by CableVision for their Enhanced Pay Per View and
Video On Demand services. This was my first shot at OO Analysis.
I employed the Rumbaugh OMT methodology. There was no CASE tool,
I used paper, pencil, and captured the analysis in Framaker.
Links to:
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The last version of my OOA Requirements,
may be obtained by following this link.
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As an educational experience in OO
technology in general and C++ in particular, I used the Microsoft Foundation
Classes and the Software Development Kit (1991 vintage) to build an AMI
simulator. This progressed in 2 phases. First, in order to
understand C++ without getting confused with Windows programming, I built
a command line version of the AMI interface. After I was feeling
comfortable about C++, I tackled the Windows learning curve. First
by trial and error, and later, using the Visual C++ GUI tools. The
software design (class diagram) used for these simulators meet the OOA
as a set of requirements. The simulators are not complete, and to
their level of completeness, have some bugs. To download these simulators,
follow the links (TBD):
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Command Line Interface AMI Simulator
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Windows GUI AMI Simulator amigui.exe
Interdiction Control System (ICS)
The ICS was initiated at a request
from PacBell. They wanted to offer Pay Per View and regular Pay Station
services on their newly emerging HFC network. Lucent was building
an Interdiction Device to sit over the NIU. All PPV and Pay Station
channels were encrypted at the Interdiction Device and were decripted for
a period of time as controlled by the ICS. The ICS took it's marching
orders from ASOS regarding scheduling when interdiction was to be on/off.
This was my second shot at OOA.
This time, I used the Rational Rose CASE tool.
Links to:
Unfortunately, PacBell was unwilling
to sign the contract, so after 6 months of work by a team of Lucent employees,
we stopped.
Cable Modem Research
This project had tremendous
potential. We investigated and pushed for the ADAPt+ protocol to
deliver IP and ATM services over HFC to devices at home, behind the cable
modem. We preceded the MCNS specification with ours. In my
opinion, they pinched many of our concepts. I established that using
MCNS atomic components, our ADAPt+ protocol could be constructed, although
somewhat less efficiently than we specified it.
Links to:
This project resulted in several
patent applications, two with my name. One was for the ADAPt+ control
message architecture and messages. One was for a procedure
to fall-back to the low speed downstream telephone link in one-way cable
plant under a cable failure (under the philosophy: 33.6 Kb/s is not at
good as 10 Mb/s, but it's infinitely better than 0 Mb/s).
Internet Telephony Research
This project delt with delivering
Voice over IP over HFC. I learned H.323 during this project, and
after presenting my tutorial version of it to two customers, we had them
chomping at the bit, wanting to deploy it. I left this project
before we delivered, but I understand that this is still a viable Lucent
opportunity.
Links to:
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Problem Statement
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Schematic Architecture
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Detailed Architecture
It is my undertanding that the current
architecture being implemented differs from that at the links. However,
the links do point out how H.323 fits into delivering basic as well as
enhanced telephony services.
Miscellaneous:
Training
At AT&T/Lucent Bell Labs
CV (long long list, precedes
AT&T/Lucent employment)